Waugh says sledging is part of our DNA

Australia need to keep up the verbal jousting to return home with the Ashes, according to Steve Waugh, the nation's most successful Test captain.

Waugh, who won 41 of his 57 Tests as skipper, said verbal abuse during play to undermine an opponent's confidence, known in the sport as sledging, was part of our DNA.

Cricket Australia issued a letter to the squad on the subject of good sportsmanship on the eve of the tour.

"You can't change the way Australia plays the game," Waugh, 44, said in London as the second Test began at Lord's. "If we went out there for 30 hours of cricket and didn't say a word, we'd lose."

The build-up to the second Test has been dominated by mud-slinging after captain Ricky Ponting said he was unhappy at England's time wasting in Cardiff, where the home team clung on for a draw.

England's 12th man and physiotherapist made multiple visits to the field as the five-day Test reached its climax with Australia needing one more wicket to win.

Ponting said England hadn't played within the spirit of the game, prompting accusations of hypocrisy from former players and coaches.

"Can the Australians really argue that England's tactics are worse than the way Ponting places pressure on the umpires and makes them look bad in front of a huge crowd and TV audience," Duncan Fletcher, who coached England to victory in the 2005 Ashes series, said this week in his column in the Guardian newspaper. "And we haven't even mentioned Australia's sledging."

Ponting responded by writing in the Daily Telegraph that Fletcher was an irrelevant person in the cricket world at the moment and that the Aussies were soft targets for critics.

"Some people talk as if we are always sledging or losing our rag," Ponting said. "But in recent years our record of players being reported or stepping over the line in international cricket has probably been as good as anyone."

Waugh said the emotional response was good for elite five-day cricket as it faced competition from Twenty20.

Twenty20 has pulled in billions of dollars of commercial revenue and attracted new fans since it started in 2003.

"Test cricket needs that rather than having a boring game where no one watches it," said Waugh, who played in a record 168 Tests before retiring in 2004. "Let's have a bit of emotion in it. I loved watching the last three hours of that Test."

In an effort to arrest declining Test crowds, the International Cricket Council and Marylebone Cricket Club, who govern the game and its laws, are discussing ways to improve its appeal.

Among the proposals are a Test world championship and the introduction of day-night matches played under floodlights.

Under the world championship plan, teams would play in a knockout format, with the top two countries advancing to a final at Lord's.

Waugh, a member of the MCC's world cricket committee, said he'd only attended three days of cricket since quitting due to work commitments that include promoting a banking service for sports professionals.

"Test cricket risks fading away without changes," Waugh said. "Series such as the current contest between Bangladesh, the last-placed team in the ICC Test rankings, and a West Indies squad without its best players, may alienate support.

"Who'd turn up for that? A second West Indies side against Bangladesh, who'd won one Test in 60. Test cricket would die if they're the sort of games you're going to have the opportunity to watch."